


Of Walls and Rats

by Lurkete



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Past Child Abuse, Rats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 05:12:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10550642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lurkete/pseuds/Lurkete
Summary: Prompt: Legend of the Seeker, Cara/Kahlan, ratsmade for the "We're all stories in the end. - THE BECHDEL TEST COMMENT FIC-A-THON".Time-line wise this would have taken place around Se. 2, Ep. 3.





	

Kahlan's system gets flooded with dread when her ears pick up the nearly-forgotten sound.  
  
****

"Dennee?" she whispers to the frozen shadows of the cavernous barn they are sleeping in.

 

"It's all right Dee, remember, he sleeps at night, he can't hurt us when he sleeps. So _please_ you have to be really quiet," she hushes desperately into the night – her tone childish from memory and slurred from sleep.

 

But it doesn't sound right to her own ears and she realizes that it's because her voice sounds different, like her mother's.

 

Her half-conscious mind tries to grasp at the bits of clues splayed before it, tries to make the connections, but it's hard, it's cold, and she just wants to burrow back into her furs and cover her head; but how can she, when her little sister sounds so afraid, so damaged.

 

She hears the mewling again, a soft cry, a whimper, wanting to be more, wanting to ask for help, for protection against terrible things, real things - not imaginary monsters under the bed, but ones that grab, that strike.

 

But most of all it is a sound that knows that it should not be uttered for fear of alerting those exact monsters. A sound of arrested misery.

 

She hates it, she hates that her sister cries. Why can't Dennee just shut up? It just makes it worse; he likes it when they cry.

 

When she'll be big she won't let anyone touch them, she'll stand tall and strong in front of her sister and Denee will be able to cry as much as she wants; she'll be able to scream, and tear her hair out, and howl at the world, and Kahlan will stand in front of her and stare down anyone who dares object.

 

 

But no, it cannot be Dennee, that was a long time ago, a lifetime ago.

 

She subconsciously rubs her wrists, her mind finally waking up when it comprehends that they are not bound.

 

She sits up straight in her sleeping roll and wraps the thick over-layer around her head and torso, she probably looks like a giant furry caterpillar but she doesn't care. It is winter and through the large gap under the barn doors she can see the ice pilling up.

 

It is a strange hour of the night, the moon is streaming in through an opening in the barn's ceiling, the wide glittering shaft is almost blinding in its contrast to the rest of the surroundings, blinking flecks of snow twinkle in its light as they float down to the packet earth of the barn's floor, forming the shape of a neat white square in the middle of the room that echoes the shape of the gap in the roof through which they came.

 

Kahlan sees the silhouette of a cow as it shuffles in its stall, clearly asleep while still standing on its feet.

 

It is quiet, cold, peaceful. Eerie.

 

Why has she woken up? She blinks and rubs her eye with the back of her hand. Her mouth tastes sour.

 

She flops back to the floor, this time on her stomach, grabs her bed-roll from the inside and bends it around her as she curls into a fetal position.

 

She bolts up in a flash when she hears the mewling again; she pales and breaks out into a sweat.

 

Now she remembers.

 

Spirits, she hasn't heard such a terrible sound in years. Has the farmer's little daughter snuck into the barn in the middle of the cold night, wanting one last glimpse at the Mother Confessor? Or maybe it was a peak at the Mother Confessor's ominous companion that triggered the child's curiosity.

 

She turns her gaze to look at the Mord-sith and freezes.

 

The woman is sleeping a respectable distance from her, close enough to sprint into protective action if the situation were to require it, but also far away enough so that her back touches the barn wall.

 

There is no curious child hiding in the shadows; rather, it is Cara herself that is fidgeting in her sleep, curled tightly into a protective ball, face twisted in a look of misery and eyes streaming with thick rivulets of tears.

 

Kahlan didn't know Cara was capable of crying. She honestly suspected that Mord'sith got their tear-ducts burnt away with an Agiel when they were small.

 

To see Cara like this is, well, she doesn't know what to think.

 

Should she wake her up?  
The most normal of people are unpredictable when being woken from a bad dream, so a renegade Mord'sith?

 

She flops back down once again, twisting around so her back is to the other woman; but the whimpers don't stop and the sound is grating on her mind.

 

How can she sound so pitiful? So weak? Can't she just shut up? It just makes things worse; they like it when you cry.

 

Kahlan covers her ears and shuts her eyes tightly, but she can still _sense_ the other woman's anguish.

 

Aren't Mord'sith supposed to be incapable of dreams?  
Kahlan snorts bitterly, probably the same way they are supposed to be incapable of crying.

 

She turns around angrily to stare at the other woman.

 

What an odd creature.

 

On the one hand, Richard thinks they can trust her.  
On the other hand, Richard is capable of criminal-naiveté.  
On the third hand, Richard is the one-true-seeker, so there might be higher, magical powers involved in his decision to include her into their inner group.  
On the forth hand, Richard trusted that merchant when he told them that he upped the price on his food-cart because D'Haran soldiers ransacked his village – that was a lie, she's a Confessor and knows when people lie – the merchant was just good at spotting dupes; but Richard still wanted to pay the higher price even when she pointed that out.

 

She sighs and wishes he were here instead of helping that other village that needed help just as much as the one she and Cara had assisted.

 

He'd distract her with his smile and his idealistic view of reality. She would listen to him and be carried off into his storybook-adventure perception of the world, where the good guys always win, where leaders can leave their nations and traipse around the land without consequences, where crooked merchants can be paid ridiculous prices because, "don't worry Kahlan, we'll find some more money when we need it."

 

Where she doesn't need to sleep on the hard-packed floor of a frozen barn and listen to a Mord'sith cry in her sleep the way her little sister used to do after their father would beat her to a pulp.

 

Kahlan slips out of her bedroll and pads barefoot over to the whimpering woman; the cold night air is so shocking that she starts shivering almost immediately. She stops a few feet from Cara and crouches down with her hands crossed over her torso, rubbing her upper arms.

 

"Cara," she whispers harshly. She is far enough away that if the blond wakes up swinging an Agiel it won't catch her.

 

"Cara, wake up, you're dreaming."

 

The blond murmurs something that sounds like words between her soft whimpers.

 

"What?" Kahlan asks.

 

"Help me," the blond pleads. "Dali help me, they're eating my feet."

 

Kahlan lifts her eyebrows and looks down to where the other woman's legs have kicked off the coverings in her fidgeting.

 

She blanches when she spots a little field-mouse trying to burrow under the covers; it probably came through a hole in the wall and decided that the abysmal cold was reason enough to chance his life by sharing some body-heat with a slumbering human.

 

Kahlan cautiously moves closer and reaches for the mouse who decides that he's not brave enough now that his source of heat seems to have acquired a conscious friend; he scurrying off into the shadows.

 

"Go warm yourself with the cows little friend," she whispers into the night.

 

She realizes that she can't feel her feet anymore and turns to leave, but a hand grabs her arm.

 

"Don't go, please don't go."

 

So much like Dee.  
The blond hair, the tears, the beseeching desperate plea.  
The danger in acquiescing.

 

But this time her father is not there to pull them apart and wail on them. This time she's strong.

 

She makes a decision.

 

Dragging her sleeping mat and furs closer she settles in, half laying-half propped against the barn wall, and hunkers down for a cold and sleepless night.

 

 

The next day Kahlan feels tired and her back is sore.

 

Cara acts skittish and won't look at her.

 

They say goodbye to the farmer and start on their path to the meeting point with Zedd and Richard. The entire way is filled with thick silence.

 

As evening comes they turn a corner in the road, in the distance they can see a merry fire dancing in front of a cave dug into the valley's wall. The men have already arrived at the meeting place. 

 

Kahlan looks over at Cara and moves to continue on their path, but before she can take a step Cara opens her mouth.

 

"Listen I-"

 

"I don't care," she cuts the blond off before she can further elaborate. Cara looks surprised.

 

"It doesn't matter," she continues. "I don't need to know why. It doesn't matter why. It's what I do, you protect the lord Rahl and I...do that. Let me do my job."

 

Cara stares at her for a long moment.

 

"Your job is impossible."

 

Kahlan looks after the retreating woman, and suddenly her body feels lighter, as if the combined wight of her duties, and guilts, and responsibilities has been lifted.

 

Mord'sith are not supposed to dream, or feel, or cry, and Confessors are not supposed to be able to read them.

 

But just now, just for a second, she's _sure_ that her companion had allowed her shroud of opacification to be lifted, and Kahlan _knows_ – the way a Confessor knows – that Cara was lying.

 

She smiles.

 

She is The Mother Confessor, adviser to the seeker, seer of truth, protector of the Midlands and all who need it. White and noble she stands firm like the shining walls of Aydindril, between those who would cry in secret

  
and the rats.


End file.
